Fractures
by artistic mishap
Summary: Kaidan learns that trust, once lost, is hard to rebuild. It takes time and dedication and in the end, sometimes what's not said is the most important. Kmeme fill.
1. Reassurance

Note: This is a kinkmeme fill I'm currently working on. It can be read as a companion piece to _Homecoming _or as an entirely different story.

**Fractures**

Kaidan watches her from outside the hospital room, arms crossed across his chest. Shepard looks like hell, and it causes him physical pain to look at her, to know that she suffered – that she continues to suffer. Her arm is a burned, ruined mess, so mangled it hardly looks like it should belong on a person. Her leg was pierced nearly straight through with shrapnel, and from what he's heard, it missed her artery by millimetres.

She'll have several knew scars ziplining across her face from now on, too. The doctors hacked away most of her hair, as matted and filled with debris as it had been, and it sits like rotten crab grass atop her head.

Despite this, the look she's giving the doctor isn't pained. It's not self-pitying. It's annoyed, and he watches her mouth set in that stubborn way he's grown to love. That, more than anything, let's him know that she's going to be okay.

The doctor looks two-parts harassed to one part awestruck, and Kaidan takes that as his cue to to interrupt. He gives a soft knock on the hospital door, and enters without waiting. Shepard's sharp green eyes turn on him, soften, and she jerks her head towards the doctor in a way that clearly says, _Deal with this_.

"There a problem, Doc?" asks Kaidan.

The doctor practically sighs in relief at the friendly tone, and points emphatically at his patient. "The Commander is insisting that she be allowed to roam the hospital. Now, disregarding for a moment the fact that she has several debilitating injuries -"

To no one, Shepard says, "Did I ever tell the story about that time I got spaced, shrivelled to a crisp, and then woke up from a coma to fight off a mech invasion?"

Now it's the doctor's turn to look annoyed, continuing on as though he hadn't heard. "But there's also the fact that it's sheer chaos out there, and the last thing we need is the galaxy's saviour to be wandering around causing a nuisance."

Kaidan can't stop his eyebrows from shooting up. He glances at Shepard, who seems positively appalled. "Causing a nuisance?" she repeats. "Need I remind you _doctor_, that I just stopped the reaper army on foot?"

Her voice is veering dangerously into her interrogation voice, so Kaidan steps between her and her prey. He says, "Why don't you leave the Commander and I alone, all right? I'll talk to her."

The doctor collects his datapad and, shaking his head, strides out of the room mumbling to himself. Kaidan turns back to Shepard, only to find that she's now levelling a very dangerous look in his direction. Choosing to ignore it for now, he sits in the foldout chair next to her bedside. He reaches for her uninjured hand – a hand she promptly snatches away.

"Don't sit there like we're staying. I'm getting out of this bed," she says, and makes a move to sit up. Sweat collects between her brows, and from the lines around her eyes he can tell that she's in excruciating pain. Not an insignificant part of him wonders at the logic of falling in love with a woman who doesn't seem to have the sense to lie down and heal, but, well, that's a battle he's already fought and lost. So he puts his hand gently on her shoulder, and gives her a significant look. She tries to ignore it, tries to ignore his hand, tries not to meet his gaze, but then she does, and she slumps back. "I hate you," she says, but it lacks any bite.

"I know," he agrees, taking her good hand and kissing it, remembering the first time he did so, remembering her smile. She smiles now, but it's sad.

"I don't like hospitals," she says. "Not after..." Shepard doesn't finish, her face closing down.

Kaidan knows what she's not saying. _Cerberus_. He grips her hand a little tighter, propping his elbows up on her bed. "You've got to stay here and heal. You had a pretty bad shot to the leg, never mind the rest of you. Don't want to make it worse, do you?"

Shepard grumbles, which means _no_. Neither of them mention her arm, or how, unless drastic surgery is done, she'll never be as quick with a gun as she was before. She lets loose a giant sigh and turns to him, eyes searching his face. After a time, she says, "I don't know how you put up with me."

He can't help chuckling. "Sometimes it's a mystery to me too." He recalls, suddenly, what brought him to her in the first place. "Oh, hey, I have something I thought you might want."

Leaning forward, he pulls a tattered notebook from his back pocket and sets it carefully in her lap. She freezes, staring at the rough paper of its cover, the fringed pages, the worn twine that holds it all together. She's so quiet, he can't even hear her breathing, isn't even sure she _is_ breathing.

Finally, she says, "Did you read it?"

Kaidan considers lying. Telling her that he'd just found it today, and, recognizing it, brought it immediately to her. The truth is that he'd found it a few days after that last battle, a few days before they found her body. He'd slept with it, knowing that she'd held it close to her, hidden secret parts of herself inside, but had left it closed, waiting to hear the stories fall from her lips. It was only when they'd pulled her from the wreckage, broken and nearly dead, and he'd finally realized how small she was, how fragile... That's when he read it.

"Yes," he says, "I read it."

"Well," says Shepard, but can't seem to come up with anything beyond that. She leans far back into her pillows, and places her hand – her bad hand – on top of it, and somehow, that speaks volumes.

That's why Kaidan cups her cheeks, brushing away that one stray tear with his thumb. And because there's nothing else to say, he says, "I love you."


	2. Appeal

_They asked me once, after, if Mindoir had anything to do with it. I sat on an uncomfortable metal chair, solitary against the combined weight of their glances, these high-ranking Alliance officials, and I wanted to tell them the truth. I scanned their faces, one by one, taking note of the lines burrowed around their eyes, of their clenched jaws, and I could tell that they wouldn't be interested._

They weren't interested in me. They were interested in spinning a good story for the vids.

So that's what I told them – a story. I gave them a cursory detailing of the compound on Torfan. I laid out my actions in the same brief, unpoetic sentences I'd used in her report, describing the way the batarians had mounted their defense and which tactics I'd used to try and break it. How any hesitation on my part would've meant that the entire operation went ass-side up, leaving the batarians holding the stick.

I recited the names of the soldiers killed, but left off their last words – words I'd tried my best to memorize as they'd been screamed over the intercom, words I couldn't forget if I wanted to. I told them exactly where and when these soldiers had died, and spouted platitudes about heroism and sacrifice for the greater good.

And the worst part, the very worst part, was that I believed it, completely, but just because all the bullshit I rattled off was true, that didn't mean it wasn't a lie.

**ooo**

Kaidan didn't know if she would come. He hoped she would, longed for it more than he'd let himself admit, but their interactions on Mars had been strained to say the least. It had been mostly his fault – he was big enough to admit it. He'd seen the way Shepard's eyes had narrowed, seen the way she'd hunched in on herself when he'd compared her to that Cerberus soldier, and had realized he'd touched a nerve when she'd changed the subject abruptly, squaring her soldiers and moving on.

He knew, because that's exactly what she'd done on the SR1. For every three things he revealed about himself, she revealed one. She resisted all attempts to pry information from her. Normally, Kaidan couldn't be bothered with mysterious types, but Shepard was different. For her, it wasn't about playing a game. It was a difficult thing, but when she did loosen up, even for a minute, he knew he was special – that he getting to see a side of her that few did. As much as he loved her strength – and he did, no question – he loved her moments of release, of humanity even more.

Then she'd died. Kaidan couldn't help but think of it like that, even if it wasn't the official story anymore. Shepard's death. Even though he knew she was out there, working at defeating the Reapers, the memory of the Normandy's death griped him tight. He'd been a broken man, then, but he had to pretend otherwise. Regs, and all that.

On Horizon, she'd been there. Like a ghost, only he'd been able to touch her, smell her. And she'd been with Cerberus.

He'd handled that badly, too.

When she walked into his hospital room, Kaidan sat up so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash. He couldn't help the smile that came unbidden, or the way the words just tumbled out of his mouth. She was still so beautiful – long, dark hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun, mocha coloured skin he once loved to kiss, and the most striking green eyes he'd ever seen. Those eyes looked him over, taking in his injuries, the way she used to on the SR1. Even the curt way she dismissed Udina was the same.

If she was a Cerberus drone, it was damn impressive.

She pulled up a chair and sat next to him, hands folded on the edge of the bed. If Kaidan hadn't known better, he would've sworn she was avoiding his gaze.

"Still thinking about the Spectre job?" she asked, and though her voice was light and conversational, she was looking beyond him, at the Presidium, a small frown twitching between her brows.

"Yeah," he said, trying his best to match her tone. "Not sure yet though." He paused, trying his best to figure out what to say. "Doc says I have to stay in here a bit longer, but I can't wait to get out of this bed."

Those green eyes flickered to him, melting slightly as they trace his face the way her fingers used to. "And how are you, really?"

"Okay," he said, feeling hopeful and defensive at the same time. Now he's the one that can't quite meet her gaze when he says, "Jostled my implant a bit, but." A shrug finished his sentence, and Kaidan risked a glance. Shepard chewed on her lip, looking perturbed.

Once upon a time, she carried extra protein bars on missions, tossing them to him after gunfights with a small smile and the order to _eat up, the last thing we need is another disadvantage, Alenko_. Liara asked once, if it bothered him, this lack of confidence in his biotics, and Kaidan hadn't been able to explain that normal soldiers, they didn't carry extra protein bars; that the fact that Shepard had any to spare spoke volumes.

His voice was tight when he said, "Listen, are we all right?"

And just like that, Shepard was behind her fortress. He could see a glimpse of the real her, hiding deep inside, but the facade was damn impressive. She took a deep breath. "We've been through a lot together," she said, but the way the words rolled out, it stunk of memorization. "That sort of bond is hard to break."

"No, I don't mean, not," fumbled Kaidan, annoyed. He ran the back of his hand over his forehead, frowning. "You were my Commander, sure, but you listened to – about me, and Rahna, and..." _And all those things I never told anyone_, but he couldn't say that, not to this wall pretending to be Vea Shepard. "I wish we could just go back to the way it was."

Shepard crossed her arms tightly across her chest. "Things change."

Was that sadness in her voice? Kaidan couldn't tell, but he sure as hell felt something inside him crack. "Yeah, I guess they do." He sighed. "But that doesn't answer my question – are we all right?"

It took her a long time to answer as she studied the weave of his blanket. Finally, she nodded, once, decisively, and met his gaze. "Yeah," she said, "we are." She stood, lifted her hand as if to touch him, but wound up shoving it into a pocket. "You – you get better, okay? We need you at 100%."

Kaidan wanted to call out to her as she turned to leave, to say something that would make everything okay. Instead, he said, "Thanks for coming, Shepard. Really."

She nodded again, not quite able to look over her shoulder. "Take care of yourself, Kaidan."

When those doors hissed shut behind her, Kaidan couldn't shake the feeling that he'd failed some unspoken test.


	3. Acknowledgement

_My mother had the most beautiful hair. Curly, thick and dark, she always wore it long, weaving it into a braid every morning. The humidity on Mindoir meant that by midday, small tufts would poke out, draping themselves around her dark face. She used to get so annoyed, and threaten to cut it all off, but she never did._

There were many things that were beautiful about her. Her small hands, with her delicately tapered fingers. The way her smile flashed like a sunrise in the darkness of her face. Her laugh, always short and surprised sounding. Somehow, though, whenever I think of her, I think of her hair, and how it felt in my small hands. When I was young, I demanded that my hair should always be done in the same way with hers, hoping that some day I might be just like her.

Of course, come fourteen years old, I was too cool for that shit. I cut my hair in the sort of short, fashionable bob sported by all the women in the vids. My mother hadn't smiled then, as my hair heaped onto the ground, but she let me go through with it anyways.

The last time I saw my mother, she was being dragged away by that hair. A batarian had it wrapped several times around his hand like a leash, and he pulled as she wept. I did nothing but watch from my hiding spot, hand over my mouth so that I couldn't scream, so that my breathing wouldn't be heard.

When I joined the Alliance, I let my hair grow out, despite knowing just how big a liability it could be.

**ooo**

This Normandy wasn't the same as the old one. For one, it was bigger. For second, it was clearly in the middle of unfinished retrofits, caught midway between civilian vessel and Alliance cruiser. Still, the observation rooms were nice, and it was great to have an actual bunk instead of a sleeper pod. Kaidan always got the worst cricks in his neck on the SR1. Before the ship's destruction, Shepard had been there to help him work them out, but, well, that was then. He pushed the memories away.

He and Shepard had been tiptoeing around each other since she let him join the crew – a decision that had surprised him, even though he'd asked for it. Pointing a gun at her definitely hadn't won him any brownie points, even if in the end, he'd come around and pointed the gun where it belonged: at Udina.

The thought of it still made him feel a little queasy. If he'd pulled the trigger, Shepard would be dead. If Shepard hadn't pulled the trigger, the Council would be dead. Kaidan felt that the whole scenario had potential as the most fucked up Venn diagram ever, and he briefly considered drawing it up and taping it above his bed, as a reminder.

Wrex had asked him once if he'd be able to shoot Shepard. He'd answered mostly honestly, with the primary sentiment being _no_.

_And that_, Wrex had said, _is why Shepard would win_.

He hadn't ever thought to put it in practice.

It wasn't as though Shepard seemed to be holding it against him, though. She'd been cordial to him since he arrived on the Normandy – the same as when he'd been at Huerta Memorial. It was almost worse than her being angry, the fact that his near betrayal, their near firefight, hadn't moved her at all. He knew he should feel grateful, but he'd rather she be distant because of the coup than because he hadn't trusted her all those months ago.

He trusted her now. He just wasn't sure how to prove it to her – or if she'd be willing to accept proof, even.

The doors to the observation deck swished open, and she strode into the room, looking troubled. Time was, he'd have gone to her and asked what the matter was. Now he just stood and said, "Shepard?"

"Asari High Command has a mission for us," she said, her hands on her hips. "A monastery's gone rogue."

Kaidan couldn't help but blink at that. "Wait – what?"

Shepard snorted, and even though it wasn't much, Kaidan was pleased he'd managed to coax at least that much from her. "Little bit more dangerous than your average monks," she said, turning and leaning her back against the window. "It's for Ardat-Yakshi – asari who can kill with their minds."

He couldn't tell if she was joking. "Can't all asari kill with their minds?"

She ran one hand down her face. "No. I mean, yeah. Let's just say that this is a particular brand of nasty, and you're coming along, okay? I need all the biotic firepower I can get down there."

This was the first mission she'd assigned him since he'd come aboard, and he nodded.

She nodded in response, as if to say _well, that's that_. "ETA is two hours."

What he wanted to do was thank her for trusting him on this mission, but by the time he'd sussed out what to say that didn't sound pathetic, she was already halfway down the hall. So he finished his report, ate a snack, cleaned his rifle and was ready to go when Shepard strode into the shuttle bay, armed to the teeth, Liara following behind.

"You weren't joking about biotic firepower," he said as they boarded the kodiak.

"I've seen one of these things can do," confessed Shepard and then paused with a quick glance at Liara. "What one of these _women_ can do. She was... strong."

"But you took her down," finished Kaidan, taking a seat.

"Actually, no," said Shepard. "Her mother did."

Which prompted about a million questions, but this was neither the time or the place. And although he'd never considered himself particularly intelligent, when they ran into that asari justicar, it wasn't hard to figure out that this was the mother Shepard was referencing. That was the fun part. Less fun was seeing what these Ardat-Yakshi had become – which was to say, nightmares.

They'd fought their way to the commandos' bomb when a chorus of shrieks exploded behind them. Shepard motioned them into position, and threw a grenade at the enemy. It detonated to no visible effect.

Liara called, "Remember – they've got biotic barriers!"

He was close enough to hear Shepard mutter to herself, "I really fucking hate these things."

Kaidan and Liara worked like a well-oiled machine, creating biotic explosions that took out dozens of the cannibals while damaging the encroaching banshees. Shepard, meanwhile, did what she did best, ducking and weaving and hitting them right between the eyes. Only, these asari husks, they didn't go down with a headshot, and he could see sweat dripping down Shepard's face from her exertions.

She was maybe five meters away when the last banshee charged into her blind spot. Kaidan rushed forward, pushing her out of the way of those vicious claws while detonating his barrier. The banshee screeched and Shepard took that opportunity, twisting her body, to empty several shotgun slugs into the thing's belly. The asari husk exploded, knees crumpling as what was left of it collapsed in a heap.

All in all, not the most romantic moment of his life.

They lay there a moment, flesh and blood coating their armor, each breathing heavily. From across the room, Liara yelled, "Shepard, Kaidan, you all right?"

"Fine!" he called back. He pushed himself to his feet and offered her a hand. She accepted, and he hoisted her up. Her bun had come undone, and black hair hung around her shoulders, longer than he remembered. There was a chunk of flesh caught in it, and he plucked it out, prompting a disgusted expression from Shepard.

"That was not fun. Let's not do that again," she said. She removed something from her belt and pushed it into his hands, brushing past him towards the justicar and the two remaining civilians.

It was a protein bar. His hands closed around it, and despite their surroundings, despite the destruction and the horror, he couldn't help but smile softly to himself.


	4. Concession

**A/N; Sorry for any who read this chapter before I fixed it – technical difficulties resulted in the loss of half the chapter. **

_The numbness lasted for days after I was rescued. On the SSV Einstein, I crawled into the smallest, hardest to reach space I could find and stayed there. The marines tried to coax me out, tried to bribe me with sweets and showers. The only time I left that corner was to go to the bathroom, and even then I would sneak around so nobody would notice._

Finally, the order was given to sedate me. I thrashed in the strong arms of three soldiers until the drug took effect.

When I woke up, I was in the medbay, being treated by a doctor. He looked so much like my father that I latched onto him and wouldn't let go. I cried until my head hurt, and I think I kept talking, though God knows what I said. When this doctor finally, gently, extricated himself from me, when I finally realized that he wasn't my father, I felt like I'd been shot.

It was like losing him all over again.

**ooo**

Shepard wasn't quite the same. Though she still made her rounds of the ship every so often, stopping to talk to even the lowliest of the crew, she held something of herself back. It was almost as if it was the routine that was important, not necessarily the conversations themselves. Oh, she still cared – no question about that – but she created an invisible barrier around herself that refused to go down. She would sit for hours in her quarters without saying a word to anyone, forcing Liara to save leftovers. More often than not, they sat uneaten.

On the SR1, she'd thrown herself into those missions with passion and resolve. The resolve was still there, but the passion, well, that seemed to be wearing a little thin. Back then, she wanted to save the galaxy. Now, she was trying to make sure there was a galaxy left to save.

Kaidan was the exception to her little routines. Whatever progress he'd thought they were making, it was a sham. Every few days, she'd check in with him, or bring him on a mission, or ask for his input on a report. Other than that, she kept her distance.

It was killing him.

That was why he sent her a message to meet him at Apollo's on the Presidium. It was the coward's way out; what he should have done was gone up and ask her in person. Somehow, though, the fear that she'd say _no_ to his face was too big a deterrent. If she just didn't show, there'd still be the crippling heartache, but at least he wouldn't have an audience.

The Presidium wasn't nearly as calm as it had been in the days before the attempted coup, but considering how many refugees were clustered in the wards and the docks, Kaidan wasn't about to complain. He drummed his fingers on the edge of the table, noticing how nice the flowers smelled, inspecting the menu, doing whatever he could to quash the tiny butterflies that circulated through his bloodstream.

He almost didn't notice when she sat down, nearly jumping. "Shepard, hey," he said, relief evident in his voice. Holding up the menu, he attempted to cover it up. "I'm surprised they can still get supplies for a menu like this."

"Maybe we don't want to know how," she joked, but her smile was strained and her hands were clenched so tight in front of her that her knuckles were white.

"I'm really glad you came." Kaidan let go of a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "It's good we're taking the time to do this. I could use a sanity check."

She nodded absently, taking up the menu. "How you doing these days?"

It was now or never. "My life flashed in front of my eyes on Mars," he said. "Made me think about what I'd do differently, if I had the chance."

"Oh?" Shepard laid the menu flat and regarded him. The effort at keeping her face neutral was evident – she always got this twitch around her right eye when she attempted her poker face.

"For one, I would've trusted you earlier. No, that's not right." Kaidan shook his head, running a hand over his chin, trying not to notice the way her jaw clenched. "I would've talked to you sooner. Heard your side of the story. Made an informed judgement instead of running away." A surge of emotion he thought he'd long since mastered threatened to overwhelm him. "But you were _dead_, Shepard. It took me a long time to get over that."

"So you said in your email," said Shepard, voice flat. "Right before you mentioned a doctor."

Kaidan winced. "Yeah, I'll own that. Bad call, on my part."

"Did you love her?" It was asked the same way someone might ask if he loved french fries or jazz music.

"She wasn't you," said Kaidan, with a shrug, watching for her reaction.

"Damn it," whispered Shepard, dropping her head onto one of her hands and staring out at the view. Then, louder, with the same casual tone as before: "You know, I had no idea where I was when I woke up. I thought it'd been, I don't know, a few weeks maybe. Then they told me it was two years later. _You looked like so much meat_, they said. _Anyone else and they'd have stuck you in the ground_, they said."

Kaidan reached out to touch her spare hand, but she yanked it away. "Vea -"

"These aren't my real hands," she added, and the cracks were beginning to show in her casual facade. They probably would've been invisible to those who didn't know her well. "I used to have scars from when – from on Mindoir. They're gone now. All my old scars are gone." She flipped her hands over, frowning as she inspected them.

What he wanted to say was, _no they're not_, but he kept his mouth shut.

This time when he reached out to catch one hand gently, she didn't resist. He opened it and dropped a kiss into her palm. "I love you," he confessed. "I always have. I want to understand what this is between us, and make it real. What – what do you want?"

His heart was beating wildly in his chest, and he was afraid she was going to pull her hand away from him, shout at him – or worse, leave without saying anything.

"Anyone ever tell you that you're completely sentimental?" sighed Shepard, but she was smiling which Kaidan took as a good sign.

"I don't think that's quite an answer," he said with his own grin.

She touched his cheek, and though she didn't say the words, Kaidan knew what she was meant.


	5. Confidence

_I don't hate aliens, no matter what the media likes to say. _

_ But the secret that I've never told anyone, the secret I keep to myself is that sometimes I wish I could. Sometimes I wish I could see them as _other_. Sometimes I wish that I'd never let Garrus, Wrex, Tali, Liara onto the first Normandy. Sometimes I wish that the screaming of those batarians on Torfan hadn't gotten to me, hadn't sounded quite so familiar. Sometimes I wish that I didn't have a translator, because it's so much easier to misunderstand when you can't speak the language._

_ And sometimes, I wish I'd saved the council, because when people look at me – people who happen not to be from Earth, who happen not to be human – there's not an insubstantial amount of fear there. Like at any moment, I'd be willing to wipe them and their species off the galaxy map if they got in the way._

_ Really, though, who can blame them? _

_ How do you get to the point where you wake up and find out, my god, what if they're right?_

**ooo**

His armour had been taken off, cleaned and stowed. So had his rifle and pistol. He'd showered and donned a new uniform. Hell, he'd even rummaged through the fridge and got himself a snack. So why was his heart still beating about a million beats per second?

Rannoch... hadn't been fun. It reminded Kaidan too much of Eden Prime. Still, things had been going pretty smoothly right up until they discovered the Reaper making camp beneath the facility. Kaidan had once accidentally stepped on a downed hornet's nest as a kid – the feeling was comparable, but only if magnified by about a thousand. Again, not fun, but bearable. They'd escaped a whole slew of Reapers back on Earth, surely escaping one wouldn't be that hard.

That was when Shepard decided to jump from their getaway vehicle.

Even thinking about it made Kaidan want to throw up. He'd been wedged in behind Tali, and hadn't fully understood what was happening until Shepard had already disembarked and presumably ran to kick the Reaper in the shins. That she'd succeeded in killing the damn thing wasn't the point. The point was that she'd nearly given him a heart attack while she was at it. Then she'd just approached the geth-quarian war like it was another day at the office (which, he supposed, if one wanted to get technical, it sort of was) and wound up shouting at both sides until they agreed to peace.

He'd told her that her foray into the geth collective consciousness was going to be the most popular chapter in her biography. He was definitely eating those words now. If he hadn't been there to see that whole mess go down, he probably wouldn't believe it. Some of the crew were still going on about it. Westmoreland and Campbell even reenacted the damn thing during their break.

About the time that Westmoreland was telling the Reaper (aka Campbell, complete with pitiful bleating) that humankind was full of some badass motherfuckers, Kaidan excused himself.

He didn't wait for Shepard to open her door to admit him. He didn't even wait to be given permission, he just barged right in, ready to give her a piece of his mind... And he found her crouched over a cage.

She spared him only a fleeting glance, apparently completely unsurprised by his appearance. "Hey Kaidan." She set a little house in the cage.

"What the hell were you thinking?" demanded Kaidan, brushing the mystery of the cage aside for the time being. "You could've gotten yourself killed!"

"You're going to have to be more specific," was her nonplussed reply.

That this was true only fuelled his irritation. "You jumped out of a moving vehicle to tackle a Reaper on foot," he reminded her.

"Had to get out to aim my gun," she said, adding a little wheel into the cage.

"And then that whole business with the geth and quarians? What would you have done if neither backed down?"

Here she did pause, biting her lip, her hands falling into her lap. There was a contemplative look on her face. She opened her mouth, once, then shut it. The heels of her hands moved up to her eyes. "I would've thought of something."

"You don't have to do these things all by yourself," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She made some noncommittal sound, and then gestured past him. "Hand me that box, will you?"

The box was heavier than he'd imagined and – moving? She took it from him with a tenderness she rarely showed, pulling off the lid and reaching inside. Her hands emerged clasping a tiny hamster, which she then deposited in the cage. The little guy scurried around for a second, taking in his new surroundings, before disappearing into the house.

Kaidan couldn't quite keep his incredulity in check. "You have a pet hamster?"

"Bought him when I was with Cerberus," she said fondly. "Gave the vendor three times as much as he was worth, and charged it all to the Illusive Man. Donnelly found him hiding below Engineering and rescued him." She waggled her fingers in the cage, but the hamster remained hidden. "I named him Arnold."

Whatever irritation he'd been clinging to evaporated in a breathless laugh. "You named your hamster Arnold?"

"Technically, his full name is Arnold Theodore McSpace-Muffin." Shepard raised an eyebrow at him in what was clearly a dare to make fun of her pet naming skills. She placed the cage on her desk.

Kaidan played along. "Big name for such a little thing. He's got a lot to live up to."

"Yeah, he does," said Shepard, and she wasn't really talking about the hamster at all. She ran a finger along the edge of the cage. "You asked about the geth and the quarians? Truth is, if one or neither had backed down, I would've had to choose a side."

"Who would you have chosen?"

Shepard shook her head, and he suddenly felt so young despite the fact that of the two of them, he was definitely the elder. "I'm not going to tell you that, Kaidan," she said. "There's no point in talking about it. Things worked out."

There was no stopping it. He leaned over, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. It started tenderly enough, but all those things left unsaid between the two of them, they started to roil beneath the surface. The kiss became passionate, rough, as if they were both fighting to win a battle neither could name.

Still, when he pushed her down, when he trailed his fingers over her naked body, when he entered her, she was smiling.


	6. Support

_Mindoir isn't a topic for casual conversations. Since 95% of my conversations are casual, it rarely comes up._

_ When people ask, I tell them it was horrible. From there, I deflect the conversation so that they can't ask me any more. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to remember. _

_ This war hits a little too close to home. True, it's Reapers out to kill everyone and not batarians on a slave raid, but at the end of the day, people are still being ripped from their homes, taken from their families, killed or used for profit. _

_ People ask how I survived. I tell them it was determination. Really, it was just cowardice on my part and extreme courage from my brother. Two years older, infinitely smarter, he shoved me in the crawlspace under our house. I heard him resist above me, heard the batarians laugh, heard the gunshot. I remember biting my lip so hard I could taste blood, and even that wasn't enough when they took my mother. I never found out what happened to my father. _

_ Every day I'm a soldier, I try to make them proud – to make their sacrifice worth something. Some days, it's harder than others._

**ooo**

__She'd called from the shuttle to tell them all to assemble in the war room. Kaidan didn't say a word on the elevator ride up, and neither did the others. If they hadn't guessed that Thessia was a lost cause, they sure realized it when Liara and Shepard walked in. Shepard was a blank wall, but Liara... Liara looked as though at any second, she might sit down and never stand back up.

Everyone was concerned about her. Kaidan and Adams had a chat down in Engineering about how Liara had coped with Benezia's death on Noveria. Despite the potential for awkward feelings due to their shared interest in Shepard on the SR1, Kaidan had always liked the asari. She had a quiet manner that appealed to him; crowds and noise just really weren't his thing.

It was much, much later when he holed up in the observation lounge, unable to sleep. Reports to the council sat littered around him as he tried his best to help coordinate asari refugees with Council aid. It seemed like his omnitool flashed every few seconds with another prompt from Councillor Irrisa's office. He didn't want to think about what Shepard's workload must look like.

He wondered, briefly, if he should go up to her, but she'd made clear earlier that she wanted to be by herself when he'd reached out to her during a stolen moment after they left the war room. She'd brushed off his hand and snapped, "Don't," then, more quietly, "don't. If you're nice to me right now, I'm going to forget to be angry. I need to be angry right now."

So he'd left her alone and he'd worried. There was more than one reason he wasn't sleeping tonight.

When those doors hissed open, he found himself surprised to see her. What's more, she was wearing her pyjamas and her hair was mussed – clear signs she'd had as little luck as he had in the sleep department. Really, she looked like a little kid who'd clambered out of bed after curfew, impossibly small in her oversized sweatshirt and shorts.

"Hey," he said, making to stand, but she motioned him to stay where he was and moved to the observation window. When she stared blankly at the stars for long enough, he ventured, "How are you doing? I know today was rough."

"You should be asking Liara that."

Kaidan crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not. I'm asking you."

"Thessia was lost even before we got here," Shepard intoned, hands bunching into fists at her side. "I know that."

"But it still feels raw."

She was silent for a long time, but Kaidan felt expectation hang heavy on the air. He was waiting for something, he just didn't know what. And then Shepard slammed her hands into the glass of the window, hard and loud enough to make him jump. She let out a cry of frustration, primal and barely disguising the anguish underneath.

He was across the room before he realized he was moving, his arms going around her and it was like that fortress she built for herself crumbled right then and there. Her knees buckled and only his arms kept her from sinking in a heap on the floor. Kaidan lowered them both down, gently, and pulled her into his lap.

Back when they'd been hunting Saren, she'd been a juggernaut of impossible determination. She had no biotics, no tech training, but somehow she always managed to be exactly where she needed to be, hitting the bad guy right between the eyes. And though Saren had escaped a few times, in the end she'd gotten him before he'd been able to pull off his master plan. People had died, but Shepard was there to limit the casualties. She'd always kept her head in the game, tackled the impossible and come out victorious.

Her example had shaped him into what he was; after her death, he'd found himself pushing harder and harder, trying to make her proud. Hoping she was happy, wherever she was. The promotions and commendations were just a side bonus.

The look she had on now, though, he hadn't seen it on her face before. Shepard snuggled into his arms, and he placed his cheek upon her hair. Her limbs were loose but not relaxed – exhausted. He'd never seen her so fractured, and truth be told, as much as it scared him, it also filled him with a resolve of his own. He wanted to be the one to hold her together.

As if on cue, she said, "I'm so tired, Kaidan."

"I know," he said, wrapping a piece of her hair around his fingers. "But it'll all be over soon."

"Somehow, that doesn't make me feel better." Cynicism dripped from her words.

"I meant when we win," he clarified, using the force of his words to convey the depths of his conviction. "When we take down the Reapers and save the galaxy."

"Oh, is that all?"

"No. After that, we'll find a nice, quiet place and get some much needed R&R." When Kaidan imagined this place, he couldn't help but imagine the BC interior – specifically, that house in orchard country where his mom was holed up. He imagined seeing the dabbled sunlight play along Shepard's skin, and her smile, and, hell, so long as he was imagining he might as well add the swell of her belly under his hands and the sharp vibration of a kick from within.

"You know," said Shepard sleepily, "you've gotten better at this comforting thing. There was a time when I had to pry an _it'll be all right_ from you."

Kaidan snorted. "Yeah, well, we've had a few more life or death scenarios since then. I've had time to practice."

She just hummed in agreement. Silence seeped into the room, and for a while they were both content to sit entangled together. He could feel Shepard starting to nod off when she said, "Can we go to bed now?"

"Yeah," he said, and stood. As they made their way towards the elevator, Shepard wrapped her arms around his middle and let him help hold her up.


	7. Secret

_I don't trust easily. _

_ Although the number of "true" friends has grown substantially in the past three years, I can still count them on two hands – and if I started getting really picky, on one. If we're counting the ones who would gun me down if I stepped out of line, that's two fingers._

_ It worries me, sometimes, that people see the Legendary Commander Shepard and miss Vea entirely. Nobody should be on that high a pedestal. Nobody should be infallible. Nobody should be unstoppable._

_ I've started a count on how many times I've heard, "We couldn't win this war without you." I'm at twenty-seven since last week. The worst part is that it's something said by even those closest to me – even the two that would take me out. They'd gun me down, but they'd still feel like they just shot their best chance in the head._

_ What I've been trying to do is become that Commander Shepard. Perfect. Unstoppable. Unflappable. _

_ It means that I have a lot of thoughts I don't share. _

**ooo**

Shepard was vengeance personified as they storm the Cerberus base. She made every shot count, and gave her orders with ruthless efficiency. Within ten minutes, they'd cleared the hangar bay, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Kaidan had seen her determined, he had seen her take on impossible odds and clear bases that had no proper cover, but there was something utterly cold about the way she blasted through the bodies of those Cerberus troops.

He couldn't help but wonder if this was the Commander Shepard that led the assault on Torfan. It wasn't a fair thought – he was just as worked up about Sanctuary as she was, just as upset over their loss on Thessia, but Shepard threw even her own well-being out the window. She charged at turrets, sliding into cover just moments before her shields were set to give out completely. When troopers got too close, she pounced on them, her omni-blade flashing. She even grabbed the attention of the atlas, shouting orders for him and EDI to _overload that sonofabitch_.

Then they came to the console.

"It hasn't been scrubbed, if you'd like to look at it, Commander," said EDI, hacking the door.

Neither of them really knew what to expect, so when the Illusive Man appeared on the vid with a Cerberus scientist, talking about how Shepard had been clinically brain dead, about how there was almost no chance for recovery, they were both caught off guard. The word _spaced_ rattled around in Kaidan's head, and he felt as though someone had cut off his own airflow.

"Clinically brain dead," he repeated. "Do you remember anything?" The second the words were out of his mouth, he realized he didn't want to know, so he fumbled on. "I mean – how do you feel?"

"I'm still me," she said, but for the first time, he could hear a thread of doubt in her mind. "I feel exactly the same." Her arms dropped to her sides, but she was still stiff, her muscles knotted together. "Unless... Unless I'm just an advance VI programmed to think it's Commander Shepard."

Her standing right there, doubting her identity, asking herself all those questions he'd asked of her... She'd dismissed them so vehemently in the past, yet now after seeing the horrors of Sanctuary, now knowing exactly what Cerberus was capable of, she wasn't sure. It broke his heart, and he wished not for the first time that he could go back in time and take back all those things he'd said.

"You're real enough for me," he whispered.

At first she didn't respond, and Kaidan wasn't sure if it was because she hadn't heard or because she didn't believe. Finally, though, she nodded. "We don't have time to dwell on it now, anyways."

When she passed him, she squeezed his hand. He wanted to squeeze back, but she'd already moved on, gun prepped, ready to be Commander Shepard once more.


	8. Remorse

_I don't think I'm coming back from this war. It's not that I'm scared – it's just that I can't manage to say it aloud._

**ooo**

London was hell. Not just metaphorically, or poetically, but literally. Buildings stood vacant, the wind whistling through their open doors, their empty rooms. The clanging, vibrating calls of the Reapers resounded for miles off. Bodies lay decomposing in the streets, human and husk alike, their dark liquids running down the streets into open sewer grates. The detritus of human civilization lay scattered, so that every glance was a reminder that this was not how it was supposed to be.

It was almost impossible to look around and still have hope. Kaidan wanted to believe, but seeing it in person... He'd imagined some pretty bad scenarios aboard the Normandy and somehow they hadn't been bad enough.

That was why he'd told Shepard that it was goodbye. Every impulse in him had wanted to take her, to run away with her, to survive, but he knew, just like she did, that this was it. There would be no survival if they lost now. Shepard had been quintessentially practical in her quest for military allies, and anyone who'd ever spent any time with her knew that she realized not everybody was making out of this alive. After Thessia, it was blatantly obvious.

So when she'd responded with angry desperation, he fell in love with her all over again. "When this war's over, I'm going to be waiting," she'd said with only a slight tremor. "You better show up."

It didn't matter. When he kissed her, it tasted of goodbye, and they both knew it.

None of that mattered only an hour later when he was fighting husks off her position so she and the other members of Hammer Squad could attempt to board the Citadel. Harbinger let out a deep, rattling cry and in the distance, he saw the red explosion. But this was Shepard – Shepard who'd defeated a proto-Reaper, Shepard who'd tackled a Reaper on foot, Shepard who'd died and come back -

"They're gone," said someone over the comm. "Hammer Squad is down. There aren't any survivors."

The ringing in his ears had nothing to do with gunfire or Reapers. It lasted a hundred years and a few seconds. He waited for grief, but there was only rage. Rage like back on Jump Zero with Rahna and Vyrnnus. His corona flared, and when the Reaper forces advanced, he pushed his biotics harder than he ever before. His nervous system thrummed with energy, and he felt his amp grow hot at the base of his skull.

Kaidan was more than spent, his arms bruised with the misuse of his powers, when the Citadel exploded above London. Debris smashed into the atmosphere, burning, like falling stars.

"She did it," said someone, and Kaidan dimly realized it was Hackett. "Shepard did it."

His world cracked and split and fell down around him.


	9. Resurrection

**AN:** I just want to give a big shoutout to everyone who has read and/or reviewed – thank you so much, and enjoy this final chapter.

* * *

_I wish I had more time._

**ooo**

The hospitals (if they could really be called that) were terrible in the aftermath. The injured and dying moaned where they lay, which was pretty much everywhere, the pungent stench of blood and pus and urine seeping into the walls. Kaidan had been extremely lucky not to end up in one himself, but he spent weeks prowling their halls, trying his best not to linger, but hoping for some small sign of her.

His mother was asking him to come home, but he knew that he couldn't leave without Vea. He loved his mother, but if he had to stay in London – hell that it was – for the rest of his life looking, well, that's exactly what he'd do.

When he had to sleep, he went back to the Normandy. Nobody entered her room, and it was like a shrine to her last moments. That first night, he crawled into the bed they'd shared and buried his face deep in her pillow. That's when his hands hit something - a book, a journal, held together with twine. He flipped through the pages, taking in her cramped, efficient writing, but not reading. Not yet. From then on, he kept that book on his person at all times.

He found her on the third week, her face so injured that she'd been tagged as _Jane Doe_. At first, he wasn't sure it was really her, she was that bad looking. He stared at her, imagining what she'd look like without the scars, putting her face together like a jigsaw puzzle. It was her.

Kaidan confronted the weary doctor, he was told that the patient had intense fractures throughout her body, combined with deep tissue bruising and a very serious concussion – and that wasn't even touching the lacerations that crisscrossed her body. Her arm was particularly bad, burned in what appeared to be some form of chemical warfare, and she'd been hit with shrapnel in the leg. The doctor said she'd been found under some rubble, devoid of tags, her armour near demolished.

"She may not survive," said the doctor, trying his best to look sympathetic but only pulling off exhausted.

"You better hope she does," barked Kaidan, and he'd felt his biotic power ripple through his nervous system, his head throbbing with pain. He couldn't even find it in himself to care that the doctor backed away with something close to fear. "That," added Kaidan, with a sharp point down, "is Commander Vea Shepard. I promised to meet her, so she damn well better live."

He knew that he should go tell Alliance Command, get her transferred, but instead he sent a clipped message to Hackett and taken a seat next to Shepard, next to his Vea, not daring to touch her demolished hand, or her head, or any part of her lest he make things worse, but wanting desperately, violently to take her in his arms and hold her.

Hackett got her moved to the most prestigious hospital available, which was only marginally better than every other hospital. Due to the press, however, Shepard got her own room. Somehow, seeing her beat up against the pale colours of the room – not quite white, not anymore – made it more real. Kaidan barely left, alternating between watching her breathe and reading the secrets she'd written.

It was two weeks after that when she opened her eyes for the first time, those green eyes he loved, hazy with pain and drugs. Her first words were not endearments, were not promises or love notes. They were, "Did we win?"

Kaidan thought of the bodies on the streets, the missing posters tacked in the temporary Alliance HQ, the complete and utter devastation of the city. He laid his hand on her arm and said, "Yeah, we did."

She almost smiled, then, but the cuts on her lips made it painful so she stopped. She reached out her arm – the one not all bandaged up – and touched his face. He couldn't help himself from leaning into it.

"You been waiting long?" she asked, and he understood immediately that she was referring to their last conversation, her promise to wait for him.

"No," he said, placing a kiss on the top of her hand. "I'd have waited a hell of a lot longer."

Tears prickled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She squeezed his hand, and this time, he squeezed back.


End file.
